Scotsmen Prefer Blondes (28 page)

He turned to stand at Amelia’s side. She took a single step forward, then stopped. The movement drew Prudence’s attention.

Her face suffused with color. It wasn’t a pretty blush. Splotches of red spread down Prudence’s throat and across her chest. She straightened her cap and smoothed her hair unconsciously, as though she needed to do something with her hands.

“Shall I escort you to her?” he asked Amelia, his voice low.

“No,” she said. “I must talk to her without you.”

But even though her voice sounded sure, almost strident, her hand still clutched his arm. So when Prudence stood and walked toward them at a pace more appropriate for a cemetery than a ballroom, he didn’t leave Amelia’s side.

Prudence finally reached them. He bowed over her hand. “Miss Etchingham, it is a pleasure to see you again,” he said.

“Lord Carnach,” she murmured. But her eyes were locked on Amelia’s. “Lady Carnach, I trust you are well?”

Amelia’s fingers tensed on his arm. “Perfectly, Miss Etchingham. And you?”

Their proper titles, after years of friendship, sounded like insults. Prudence briefly closed her eyes. “Tolerably well, I suppose.”

The silence immediately grew awkward. Malcolm tried to step away. “If you want to converse, ladies, I’ll seek out other circles.”

“That would be wonderful,” Amelia said, flashing him the first grateful look he’d seen outside their bed in weeks. “Perhaps you could fetch us some lemonade while we talk?”

Prudence hesitated. “I’m not sure talking is advisable, Lady Carnach.”

“I’m sure we have much to discuss,” Amelia said. He heard a question in her voice, almost an accusation — odd, when the only sentiment he’d heard her express about Prudence was guilt.

“Yes, we do. But not here.”

“When, then?” Amelia asked. “I left my card ages ago, nearly the moment we arrived in London. And you’ve avoided meeting me at Ellie’s house.”

“Tomorrow?” Prudence said. “I will come to Ellie’s for our usual gathering.”

She didn’t sound like she wanted to, though.

“Please do,” Amelia said, low and urgent. “I must know...”

She broke off as Lady Harcastle bustled up to them. “Prudence, we must go home,” the woman barked.

Prudence shifted, but she didn’t look at her mother. “It’s early yet, Mother. Surely you don’t want to leave?”

“I find the company dreadful tonight,” Lady Harcastle said.

She still hadn’t looked at Malcolm or Amelia. The insult was clear. Malcolm didn’t care what Lady Harcastle thought of him, but for Amelia’s sake, he wanted to put her in her place.

“I trust you approved of the company in the post chaise I hired to take you to London?” he asked.

Her frown turned even uglier. “It was rude of you to invite us under false pretenses, and even ruder to fling your hospitality in our face. Prudence, we’re leaving now.”

“Mother, he wasn’t...” Prudence said.

“Don’t say you’re defending him!” Lady Harcastle exclaimed. “After what he did?”

People were looking at them curiously. Prudence’s flush spread higher, lower, until every bit of exposed skin was red.

“Lady Harcastle,” Malcolm said, his voice low, “consider your words carefully before anyone misinterprets.”

She finally looked around her. Perhaps she realized that her statements were vague enough to ruin Prudence. She lowered her voice, but the venom was still there. “Prudence should be on your arm, not her,” she said, gesturing at Amelia without looking at her. “You’ll regret what you’ve done.”

Prudence grabbed her mother’s arm. “Come, Mother, you’re right — we should leave.”

Lady Harcastle looked at Malcolm for a long moment. He stared her down. “If you were a man, I would call you out,” he warned, his temper snapping. “But as you’re not, I suggest you stay away from Lady Carnach. She should not have to hear your slander.”

Amelia placed a quelling hand on his arm. Lady Harcastle closed her eyes at the gesture. When she opened them, the venom was gone — but there was a resolve there that Malcolm didn’t understand.

“I wish you both happy,” she said, in a dark voice that sounded like a curse. “I hadn’t before, but now I see how very much you deserve each other.”

Malcolm raised an eyebrow, but she turned without saying goodbye. Prudence mouthed an apology to Amelia, but she hurried after her mother even though the woman shook off Prudence’s attempt to touch her shoulder. Prudence slowed then, but she still trailed in her mother’s wake — she had nowhere else to go.

Amelia’s hand slid from his arm. He reached out and clasped it with his own. “I’m sorry we encountered them,” he said.

“I had hoped Prudence would forgive me someday,” she said.

“I think she will,” Malcolm predicted. “But her mother is another matter.”

Amelia squeezed his fingers. “Can we still go home? Or do you want to make use of our audience?”

The other spinsters and chaperones had watched their conversation with Lady Harcastle with wide eyes. It would be smart to stay another hour and show they were entirely unaffected by her accusations — but Malcolm again found that he couldn’t deny the need in Amelia’s voice.

They returned to their house. By the time they reached his chamber, they were mindless for each other. And as he’d promised, he did everything twice. The first was hard and fast, with his hands buried in her hair and her name on his lips. Her limbs wrapped around him, clinging, stroking, like the woman he needed rather than the statue she’d become.

The second was deep and slow. Devastatingly slow. He didn’t let either of them come until her voice was hoarse from begging — until his heart burst from everything he couldn’t find the voice to say.

After, he cradled her in his arms. Her finger traced patterns across his chest, teasing him as he caught his breath.

“I don’t think our passion is in any danger of flaring out,” he said when he could speak again.

Her hand stopped. She pushed her hair back off her face. There were tears in her eyes, but she didn’t brush them away. “Don’t tempt Fate, Malcolm,” she whispered. “Our lives are far from finished.”

He kissed the top of her head. “You make me want to live forever.”

She didn’t answer. Her finger resumed its tracing. Maybe she was a witch, binding him with her touch — because his words hadn’t been a lie, even if they sounded like an empty compliment.

He wanted forever with her.

But the only way to claim forever was to accept how she felt in his arms — and acknowledge that her love was more important than any of the duties on his shoulders.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The next afternoon, Amelia took a cup of tea from Ellie’s outstretched hand. The conversation between Ellie, Madeleine, and Amelia had been desultory while they waited for Prudence, but Amelia needed their advice. And she finally seized the moment before she lost her nerve.

“Do you mind if we discuss Carnach before turning our attention to art?” she asked.

“Am I hearing you correctly? You are volunteering to discuss Carnach?” Madeleine asked, raising a brow.

“Yes,” Amelia scowled. “And I may never do so again, so you should take the offer if you’re curious.” She doubted she wanted to hear their opinions — they would never parrot back only what Amelia wanted to hear. But if anyone could help her untangle her feelings, it was her fellow Muses.

Ellie dropped a lump of sugar into her own cup. “You know I haven’t painted in an age. I’d much rather hear your latest tales.”

Madeleine settled back into her chair, sprawling like she did when she wore breeches on the stage. “I haven’t memorized any new roles lately, so I’ve nothing to discuss. Ferguson is too inventive for us to play the same characters twice.”

She blushed as she spoke, but her smile was supremely self-satisfied. Amelia laughed. “As much as I dislike the man, he is good for you, isn’t he?”

“He has his uses,” Madeleine said with a secretive grin over her teacup.

“If I have to hear yet another time that you and my brother are so perfect, I may scream,” Ellie said, rolling her eyes. “Should we wait for Prudence? Or do you want to start, Amelia?”

Amelia looked at the clock on Ellie’s mantel. It was ten minutes past their appointed time. They were ensconced in the marchioness’s private sitting room in Folkestone House, an opulent, comfortable room that Ellie had turned into an Oriental fantasy. Ellie perched regally on her chaise-longue, her red hair and pale skin lit up by the gold velvet cushions. Amelia and Madeleine sat in matching armchairs, backed by an ornate chinoiserie screen, but the settee waited for Prudence.

“Prue said she would come when I saw her last night, but she didn’t sound like she meant it,” Amelia said.

“Where did you see Prudence?” Madeleine asked. “I thought you hadn’t spoken yet.”

“At Lady Delamar’s ball. And we still haven’t truly spoken. We just exchanged a few words. Then her mother dragged her away before I could ask about her note. But Prudence didn’t seem to want to talk anyway.”

Ellie scooped up another lump of sugar. “She’ll come when she’s ready. But if she didn’t cut you last night, you still have a chance.”

Amelia sighed. “It will be a shame if I can never repair the breach with her and am saddled with Malcolm forever in the bargain.”

“Is he really so bad?” Madeleine asked. “Even if he cannot rival Ferguson, he still seems friendly enough.”

“You’ve been married for five months. Surely your honeymoon is over?”

“Not yet,” Madeleine said. “Or if it is, I still like him anyway.”

“Is yours over, Amelia?” Ellie asked. “You seemed happy enough when we saw you together in Scotland, even if you still couldn’t answer my questions.”

Amelia stayed still, fighting the urge to stand and pace the room. “In some ways Malcolm’s better every day. I would wager that he is as...inventive...as your precious duke, Madeleine.”

Ellie snorted as Madeleine choked on her tea. “So the Earl of Carnach is good in bed,” Ellie said. “Unsurprisingly, I must admit. He has a sense of humor and a strong body. He’d have to be an utter dolt to make a mess of things.”

Ellie was the most brutally frank woman Amelia had ever met — it was little wonder they hadn’t socialized when Amelia and Madeleine were still confined to the spinsters’ set and Ellie was blazing a path through the most scandalous reaches of the ton. Amelia grinned at her. “Carnach is good. Quite a bit better than good.”

“Now who is going on too much about her husband?” Madeleine teased.

“Fine,” Amelia said, holding up her hands in surrender. “I won’t go on about Carnach’s prowess.”

“A pity,” Ellie murmured. She dabbed at her mouth with her handkerchief, dusting away a crumb from her biscuit. “I don’t suppose you’d let me paint him?”

“His portrait?” Amelia asked.

“I could paint him as Caesar Augustus. With those arms and calves, he would be a sensation in Roman garb.”

The flare of jealousy was so sudden that Amelia gasped from it — and so bright that Ellie and Madeleine couldn’t help but notice it. “No painting,” Amelia bit out.

Ellie raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you have answered why you kissed him. Have you admitted yet that you’re in love with him?”

Amelia broke a biscuit in half, then slowly pulverized it between her fingers. When she looked up, Ellie’s eyebrow was still raised. Madeleine leaned forward with her arms on her knees, eager for the tale.

She set aside the saucer with its pile of crumbs. “I may be in love with him,” she said slowly.

Then she smashed her reserve like it was yet another biscuit. “Damn him, I
am
in love with him. I never prevaricate — you know I hate prevaricating.”

“Indeed,” Madeleine murmured, giggling.

“Yes. I’m in love with him. And yet I’m telling you, not him, because the bloody man won’t stay in the house long enough for me to say three words to him. And bedding is
not
the same as a real conversation.”

Every night she traced her feelings on his chest, but she hadn’t been able to say them aloud — not when she had no idea whether he would embrace them or fling them in her face. She gave in to her desire to pace, leaping up with the force of her speech. Ellie’s private salon was too small to pace back and forth, so she circled around their chairs like a caged beast.

“She’s in a bad state, isn’t she?” Ellie observed.

Madeleine sipped her tea. “She’ll come through in the end. She always has a plan. What do you plan this time, Mellie?”

Amelia came to a dead stop between Ellie’s chaise and Madeleine’s chair. She braced a hand against the back of Madeleine’s chair to steady herself.

Madeleine knew her better than anyone else — better than her husband ever would, if he kept avoiding her during the day. And Madeleine had seen all of Amelia’s schemes. So it was little wonder that she snorted when Amelia whispered, “No plan. I have no plan.”

“You must have a plan,” Madeleine insisted. “What is it? Flirting with someone at a party? Withholding sex like the Grecian women in
Lysistrata
?”

“Perhaps a slow-acting poison like the Florentine women used?” Ellie supplied.

Amelia and Madeleine both stared at her. “You’ve never thought of poison?” Ellie asked. “I declare, if Nick ever returns, he should bring an official food taster.”

Amelia laughed. “I would almost pity the man if I didn’t believe he deserved it.”

“If I do kill Nick, I won’t have the patience for poison.” Ellie drawled the words as though only humor lay underneath them, but her blue eyes were stark. Amelia leaned over and squeezed her shoulder in silent sympathy. Ellie’s former lover was her dead husband’s cousin and heir — and Amelia suspected that if he ever returned to claim the title, their battle would be a story for the ages.

Ellie shrugged away from Amelia’s hand. “No poison for Carnach, then. What will you do instead?”

Amelia slumped back into her chair. “I don’t know. I hate not knowing, but there you have it. The great Amelia Staunton, plotter extraordinaire, brought low by a mere man.”

“At least her pride hasn’t been utterly destroyed,” Madeleine observed.

“Careful, Amelia,” Ellie said, taking Amelia’s cup and refreshing it from the teapot. “Sentiments like those will have every would-be women’s suffrage supporter in London beating a path to your door.”